Most date rape victims ‘are made helpless by drink and not drugs’

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Title – Most date rape victims ‘are made helpless by drink and not drugs’
Source – Daily Mail
Date – 16th November 2006

Excessive consumption of alcohol is still the overwhelming contributing factor to so many problems faced by those working within the security industry and licensed retail sector. In recent years the threat of date rape drugs being used has added to the concerns of those working within the sector. Most will have heard the phrase “I think my drink has been spiked” when dealing with intoxicated individuals and many will know this can often be an excuse rather then a reason.

But can we really afford to ignore a situation when an accusation like that has been made? Not if we want to continue to impress that the security industry is one where professionalism and customer care have been made a priority. But although every situation has to be dealt with on its merit, we must learn from our own experience and take on board the facts rather then the hype.

In this study only 10 out of 120 cases of 'Drug Facilitated Sexual Assault' (DFSA) involved any kind of date rape drug, but 119 had consumed alcohol. There were 11 other cases where the results were not proved either way. So even in the worst case scenario in this study only 17.5% of actual DFSA victims showed any sign of “date rape drugs”. However 99% showed signs of having consumed alcohol and a third of these were over three times over the drink drive limit.

We can clearly see from this report that alcohol is still the overwhelming substance involved in DFSA and those of us working within the security industry and licensed retail sector must ensure that we consider the consequences of binge and excessive drinking. This process starts at the door when customers come into our venues and continues when they buy drinks at the bar, follows on when customers use our facilities such as the dance floor or toilets and doesn’t end when they have left our venues, but only when they are safely on their way to their next destination. From start to finish we have a responsibility towards them and a duty of care. To carry out our responsibilities all staff need training and not just the Door Supervisors. The days of bar staff filling customers up on alcohol and Door Supervisors throwing them out once full, is gone and the age of accepting responsibility throughout is upon us.

It may be concluded from this report that alcohol could be considered as one of the drugs covered by the catch-all 'date rape drugs' and in fact be the most prolific drug used. Drink spiking may seem to be in some circumstances a prank where friends are trying to get each other more and more drunk, there is a very sinister side to this practice and we all have a responsibility to help stamp out this practice and act responsibly and professionally.

We understand the contradictions that reports and press releases can portray. On the one hand a report will be published like this one and weeks later we will hear that one in eight drinks are spiked, who knows what to believe? Reports like this suffer from a lack of victims coming forward and the short time frames involved in getting victims tested. Date rape drugs notoriously disappear from the blood stream quickly and often, by the time the victims realise what has happened, there is no way to confirm the drug used to facilitate their attack.

Training staff can go a long way to resolving these problems as individuals realise their responsibilities and the dangers of ignoring them, the sinister side to slipping an extra vodka in a 'friends' drink need to be put into perspective and the real dangers need to be more widely understood within your business and the sector as a whole.



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